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9 Players Barcelona Should Clear out in Summer Transfer Window
- Updated: June 6, 2016
Barcelona’s transfer machine is already up and running, but so far only outgoing deals have been wrapped up as they plan for defending their La Liga title in 2016-17.
Dani Alves told SportItalia he’ll soon join Juventus (h/t ESPN), and Borussia Dortmund opted to activate Marc Bartra’s release clause, but there is yet more work ahead for Luis Enrique to prepare his squad for another rigorous season.
Part of our look at the Asturian boss’ summer plans involved him rebuilding from the back; now it’s time to see exactly why, with Barca having another six players they should be looking to offload in addition to the two already departed.
Courting controversy: Claudio Bravo
It’s perhaps a surprising name, and certainly the only first-XI choice on the list, but Barca should be opting to cash in now on Chilean goalkeeper Claudio Bravo.
The 33-year-old is agile, consistent, has strengths that suit Barca’s game and has another two years left on his contract…but he is 33.
It’s not especially old for a goalkeeper, but the Catalan outfit could get a decent fee in for him this summer after perhaps his best three years in a row—Bravo’s final season at Real Sociedad and his two at the Camp Nou, in addition to winning the 2015 Copa America with his national team.
Goalkeepers who fetch a good fee at that age are few and far between, and the time has perhaps come for Luis Enrique to pick an outright No. 1 instead of rotating Bravo for La Liga and Marc-Andre ter Stegen for the cups.
Despite Bravo having done very little wrong, the right choice for now and the future is to back the German.
Ter Stegen has put in some exceptional performances for Barcelona, and though he admittedly has the odd big error in his game, so does pretty much every goalkeeper on the planet.
Allowing Ter Stegen to mature and take on responsibility is the only way to try to remove those errors from his game, and Barca will regret not choosing him in a couple of seasons’ time if he is performing at the highest level and they then need to replace an ageing Bravo anyway.
Difficult choices have to be made, and Ter Stegen has everything the team needs to fit their style, as well as relative youth. Aged 24, he has a decade ahead of him, and the best years should now be seen at Barcelona—and that means offloading Bravo and reinvesting the money received from him elsewhere.
The overcrowding in defence
Bartra has gone, yet he barely scratched the surface in terms of making up …
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